Traditionally, the first flight of the season is abandoned for high winds, torrential rain and/or lightning and so the wonderfully benign conditions caught half the fleet napping and we were 7 for the opening sortie.

Fresh conditions on the dock promised to blow out a few cobwebs, but by the warning signal the breeze had dropped and continued to do so.

Hayden Whitburn's Upfront (814) adjusted best to the change of pace and stepped out to an enormous lead, which slowly diminished to a point where he must have been sweating bricks. But he held his nerve - and the lead - to drift over in first.

There is no tracking for this race - all owners need to re-activate tracking by logging back into Yacht-Bot and sharing their device with the fleet account (alex@etchells.org.nz) - instructions have been emailed to individual owners.

Next week'd weather looks pretty good for racing and we hope to see more of you out there for Flight 2. See you then.